I take issue with Alex Zubatov's column [Do You Really Want to Vote, 9/6/96, YH]. In his column, Zubatov argues that politics in America should be about competing political philosophies--the way it was back in Russia, his homeland. This criticism simply does not work. The leaders of the former Soviet Union did not allow its citizens to engage in the most basic aspects of politics--deciding who gets which limited resources. As I'm sure Zubatov knows, the Communist Party engaged in those decisions, leaving the people no alternative except the discussion of political philosophy.
In the United States, governing at any level is about who gets what. Unfortunately, Zubatov does not see that there are stark divisions between the two political parties at any level of government.
At the presidential level, the choices are clear. There is the issue of how to reduce the budget deficit hurting this nation's old and poor. There is the subject of student loans and who will control them. There is the issue of health care, with its many questions of who deserves health care and how to provide it, along with the issues of Medicare and Medicaid. There is the recent issue of welfare reform and how to provide consistent yet fair aid to this nation's poor.
These important decisions remain to be made at the polls, and more decisions are added as one progresses down the ballot this November. In the Congressional and Senatorial elections, your vote can decide which party has the majority in the House and the Senate. Which party controlls the legislature also decides whether a woman can continue to have an abortion legally, whether American children should pray in school, and whether or not the Brady Bill and its mandatory waiting period before The purchase of a gun should be repealed.
Even at the most local level, your vote can decide whether the Alderman for Pierson, Davenport, Morse, and Stiles will pay attention to the needs of Yale students or whether he will ignore Yalies completely.
But if, as Zubatov asserts, these alternatives are not enough for you, there is still another option. America is a representative democracy. The legislators and executives vote the way they do because we, their constituents, give them the power to do so. If you do not like the status quo, then get out there and mobilize some voters--mount a campaign, and fight for change. But at the very least, make your voice heard by showing up at the polls on November 5.
The problem today is that surprisingly few Americans care enough to vote. They feel that their vote will not make a difference. In Connecticut, for example, more people voted in each small suburb in 1994 than voted in the entire city of New Haven. This pattern held true for almost every city in America. No wonder the radical Republican leadership, spearheaded by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), was able to pass such measures as the Welfare Reform Bill. They did not feel accountable to residents of cities, especially the poorer residents. Alex Zubatov, what I am about to write goes for you as much as it goes for anyone else: if you are unhappy with American politics, but you do not vote in November, you have no one to blame but yourself. I have news for you: your votes do make a difference.
--David Dashefsky, BK '97